


The Prince and the Spy

by Northern_Lady



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jotunn | Frost Giant, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Loki Theories, Loki is demisexual, Natasha spy skills, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Prison
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-05 21:52:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14627769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northern_Lady/pseuds/Northern_Lady
Summary: Post Infinity War, Loki is alive and Natasha is Thanos' prisoner. Can they overcome their past enmity and learn to work together to survive?





	1. Chapter 1

Twenty nine days. For twenty nine days Natasha Romanov had been imprisoned and tortured and it had been unlike any torment she had ever known before. She lay curled up on the stone floor of her cell, hungry, barely clothed, bleeding, and cold. The worst part was knowing that no one was coming for her. The Avengers, thanks to the Reality Stone, believed she was dead. Their attempt to get the Gauntlet from Thanos, to use it to go back in time and fix all that he had destroyed, had failed. The failure had ended in Nat being captured and taken to a cell inside a facility run by Thanos. She had seen him twice in all that time. Once he had come to tell her that he was letting her live because he was merciful but as punishment he was giving her to his men. The second time he had come to tell her that because she had put up such a fight and severely wounded one of his men, he had made the Avengers believe she was dead. No one was coming for her. She might as well stop fighting, or so he had said. 

Nat heard footsteps approaching the cell and she forced herself to her feet, ready to fight, even though she knew it would be useless. Since the day she broke a man’s arm and bit his ear off, they usually came four at a time. With their alien physiology, they were far too strong for her to fight four at a time. They would arrive soon and as usual they would torture her and use her for their own sick entertainment. Except it didn’t sound like four sets of feet this time. It sounded like one. She took a step back. If it was only one it could be someone very powerful, maybe Thanos himself. 

The door to the cell opened and a familiar looking silhouette stood in the doorway. “Loki?” Natasha said. “You’re supposed to be dead. Is this the reality stone again? Or some other trick?” 

He took a step into the cell and she could see that he carried a cloth sack with one hand. “While I do like tricks, this is not one of them.” 

“Thor said he thought you were dead. How are you alive? And why are you here?” she took a wary step back. 

“I never intended to kill Thanos on that ship and he never intended to kill me. It was all a ruse, all part of the agreement he made with me in exchange for the tesseract. As for why I am here, I am making preparations to take my place as the rightful king of Jotunheim,” Loki told her. 

“That still doesn’t explain what you you’re planning to do here, in this cell,” Nat said, more than a little angry at this turn of events. If he was planning to use her like the others had, she was going to do her best to hurt him before it was over with. 

Loki held out the bag in his hand. “Have no fear Agent Romanov. I’m not here to harm you.” 

Nat didn’t move. “What is that?” 

“Clothes, food, and a blanket. I only learned this morning that you were here. This was all I could get on such short notice.” 

Nat cautiously stepped forward and took the bag from his extended hand. She opened it up and glanced inside and found he had spoken the truth. Inside was a pair of black yoga pants, a long sleeved blue shirt, a bag full of granola, and a thick gray blanket. She glanced at Loki in confusion. Was he trying to break her further by being kind to her? If that were the case, she shouldn’t accept any of this. She shivered a little and took another look at the blanket in the bag. 

“Why?” she finally managed to say. Whatever his reply was, she wasn’t sure it would even be half true but she had to ask anyway. 

“Because as I told you when we first met, I am not a monster,” Loki said, and with that he left the cell. 

As soon as he had gone Nat pulled on the yoga pants over her tattered shorts. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and sat down on the floor of the cell to eat granola. Loki wasn’t a monster? She didn’t believe a word of it. If he believed that helping her would redeem him somehow, she was willing to let him believe it. She would do whatever it took to survive. 

Three days passed. Three days of more horror. Thanos men left her alone for hours at a time. The few hours that they spent with her made the lonely ones filled with dread. On the fourth day, the granola she had rationed for herself had run out. She sat there gazing at the empty bag when she heard footsteps and voices approaching the cell. She recognized one of the voices as belonging to Morg. He had been to visit her as often as three times a day since her arrival. He was the most brutal and most power hungry of all those who had come to her cell. 

Morg threw the cell door open and Nat did her best to take her thoughts elsewhere until he was gone. It never really worked. She was still aware of where she was and what he was doing but she had to try. What she wasn’t aware of were her own screams. 

Morg wasn’t even done with her when the door to the cell was flung open. “What is the meaning of this?” A familiar voice said from the doorway. 

Morg didn’t answer. He wasn’t done. One of his three companions did answer. “We’re having some fun. Want to watch?” 

“No,” Loki said, his tone held disgust. “Get out.” 

The three companions did as bidden. Not Morg. Loki grabbed the brute by the neck and shoulder and threw him off Natasha and against the wall. Morg roared in anger. Natasha grabbed a blanket to cover herself and backed into a corner to avoid the fight that was about to ensue. 

“If you want her, wait your turn!” Morg roared. 

“There will be no more taking turns,” Loki told him. “Thanos gave her to me. Now get out!” 

Morg’s anger faded and he looked a little frightened. Then he left. Loki turned to Natasha. 

“If you think I won’t fight you…” she started to say even though she knew it was hopeless. 

“You won’t need to.” Loki went to her and picked her up before she could protest.

 

He carried her out of the cell and down a dark corridor. She thought about breaking free of his arms and making run for it but realized that she didn’t actually had the strength to run. She had eaten nothing but a serving of granola in the past four days and had hardly any water or sleep. If she tried to run, she wouldn’t get far. Loki took her up a set of stair and down a wider corridor. They went into a room that seemed to be a bedroom. He bolted the door shut behind them then carried her to the bed and placed her on it. Nat felt a moment of panic at being put on his bed but Loki immediately turned away, seemingly having no interest in her. She breathed an audible sigh of relief at having just a few moments of rest. 

Loki was busy occupied gathering bandages and salves from a nearby dresser. He turned on hearing her sigh. “I’ll leave you to rest soon. You have wounds that need tending first.” 

“Why are you helping me?” she asked, still not trusting his intentions. 

Loki didn’t reply. He left the room and went into an open door of what seemed to be a bathroom. She heard him turn on water. A short time later he returned to her. “Can you walk to the bath without assistance?” 

Nat wasn’t sure she could make it but she was damn well going to try. She didn’t need him carrying her anywhere. It was a struggle to sit up and out her feet on the floor. She stood and managed to make the few wobbly steps to the bathroom doorway. She stopped there, waiting to see if he was going to let her go alone or follow her like the monster he was. 

Loki seemed to understand her hesitation. “If you need help once the door is closed, I will send in Rilla. She is a maid of only fifteen years of age and perfectly harmless.” 

“I won’t need help,” Nat said, and she limped into the room and locked the door behind her. 

She quickly began to regret her own stubbornness. What was left of her clothes were not easy to get off given the amount of pain she was in and she had hoped to bathe as quickly as possible. One little lock on the door wasn’t going to stop Loki or any of Thanos men for long. She did manage to get her clothes off and step into the tub. The water was warm and scented with soap. She could not escape the nagging fear that Loki wanted her to be cleaned up before he used her. Maybe this wasn’t for her benefit but for his. Her body was bruised and bleeding in multiple places. She washed the cuts, washed her hair, and only stayed in the water as long as she dared. Nat dragged herself out of the tub and used the salves and bandages provided. She dressed in clean clothes that were left for her which seemed to be underclothes and a sundress from earth. The tag on it said Old Navy. She still had no shoes so she combed her hair and debated with herself on the possibility of trying to stay locked in this bathroom for a while longer just to avoid Loki. Then she smelled food. 

Loki wasn’t sitting at the table waiting for her like she’d expected he would be. Nat had really thought he would try to charm her into being his lover. He would give her food and clothes and medicine and try to win her over with kindness, either to get information from her, or because even psychopaths get lonely, or maybe both. If that was his plan, then why wasn’t he here? 

She went to the table and found multiple plates of food as well as a note. 

Please rest and eat. I will return tonight and explain. 

Explain what? Explains how he wasn’t a monster and Thanos was right? Explain why Thanos had given her to Loki? She didn’t care to hear any of his explanations. Loki was right about one thing though. She did need to eat and rest. She could never escape this place if she didn’t regain her health. Nat ate as much of the fresh food on the table as she could safely keep down. She didn’t eat the apples or the nuts or the bread. Those she wrapped up in a pillow case and slid them under the bed. If she got the chance to escape, she might need to bring food with her. She checked the lock on the bedroom door just be sure and found it securely locked. The windows were locked as well and covered with bars on the outside like a cage. They seemed to be several floors up from the ground too. Natasha studied the city streets below for a long while in hopes of finding the best escape route when the time was right. 

Then, almost against her will, Nat went to the bed. This was definitely Loki’s room. Several of his green and black items of clothing were hanging in the closet. There were books on the shelves, most in languages she did not recognize but there were a few English titles as well as titles in Russian. Thor had said his brother liked to read. She supposed that made sense. Loki’s schemes and plans did require a fair amount of intelligence. Intelligent or not, she did not want to sleep in his bed. There was no place else to sleep except for on the floor and she had done enough of that in recent days. She pulled back the covers and climbed into the bed. 

Sleep did not come easily to her. The nightmare she was living in made it difficult enough. Added to that was the fact that her friends believed her dead, half of earth was gone, and this bed smelled like Loki who had now become her captor. Eventually exhaustion prevailed and Nat fell into a troubled sleep. 

Natasha awoke in darkness to the sound of someone moving in the room. She was out of bed and on her feet in a fighting stance in an instant. 

“It’s alright,” Loki’s voice spoke in the darkness. “I was trying not wake you. I thought you needed the rest.” An electric light switched on and Nat found Loki standing near the door with a rolled up sleeping mat under his arm. “I thought I would sleep on the floor.” 

It seemed as if he he spoke the truth. Why else would he be carrying around a sleeping mat? He was actually not planning to force her into anything, at least not tonight. Suddenly Nat was overcome with exhaustion. “Why?” she asked, her voice breaking as she did so. “ You said Thanos gave me to you. This is your room. You could sleep wherever you wanted. Or maybe you’re just repulsed by all the bruises.” 

Loki shook his head. “I’m rarely interested in women, or in men, or in anyone. Except on scarce occasions when I have known them for a very long time. I believe the term your people use is demisexual. And even if I had known you long enough and well enough to want to share your bed, I would not wish you any harm or take you against your will. You are free to rest. I will not touch you.” 

Nat stumbled closer to the bed and rested against it in order to remain upright. “You still haven’t explained why. What do you want from me? Information?” 

Loki crossed the room and unrolled his mat next to the bed. He turned one of the chairs at the table to face the bed and sat in it. “You should sit. This could take a while.” 

Nat sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to continue. Loki waved his hands and green light burst from him and spread to the corners of the room, then faded. “I’ve just cast a spell so that no one can hear what I say in this room. The truth is not what you think it is. None of this is as it seems.” 

“Then what is the truth?” Nat asked. 

“If Thor told you my story, he probably told you that I met Thanos when I fell from the bifrost just after he and I battled in New Mexico. That’s not how it happened. I met Thanos long before then in dreams and visions. He haunted my nightmares for years and I was never sure if he was even real if not for the fact the events in my dreams kept coming true. Then Odin sent me alone to Vanheim with a message for a friend and I met Thanos in the flesh. He told me that he was Thanos from the future. That everything I had seen in my nightmares was real. He was going destroy half the universe and if I wanted to survive it all, I had to help him. He would reward me with a world to rule….at first I refused. Then he reached out with his gauntlet and he touched my mind. I had never known such pain. I do not know how long he held on. Thor told me when I returned to Asgard that I was twelve days late. Anyhow, Thanos told me that if I did not help him, he would show no mercy on those I cared about...I was broken enough that I believed him.” 

“So you’re saying he tortured you into helping him? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because of that?” Nat asked, though some part of her did feel pity, though she would never admit it aloud. 

“No. Because I never did what he asked. I only made him think I had done it.” 

“How?” Nat wasn’t buying it. 

“Thanos needed Odin and Thor out of the way before he could get all the Infinity Stones. He wanted to make an alliance with Jotunheim and invade Asgard. I had hoped that when Odin banished Thor to earth, that telling him our father was dead would be enough to keep him from returning to Asgard, that he would stay and guard earth without Thanos knowing he had been stripped of his power. I had hoped that killing Laufey and destroying Jotenheim would be enough to at least slow down Thanos plans. It’s true, I was angry with Thor, and with Odin for his lies about my parentage, and I used that anger as a chance to betray Thanos. When I fell from the bifrost I met him again. He was harsher with me than before. So I agreed to invade earth and bring him the tesseract. I believed that the Hulk was the only chance of beating Thanos and since Thanos would be watching I thought it best to unleash the Hulk and let him see that earth was not so primitive as he had believed. I never planned for the invasion to succeed because I knew that if I lost, both I and the tesseract would be taken back to Asgard and the plan would remain the same. Odin and Thor must be out of the way before Thanos would try to take the tesseract from Asgard. The only thing left I could do was fake my death and become Odin. If I were dead, Thanos could not expect me to deliver the tesseract to him and if Odin lived he could not come and take it.” 

Nat regarded him skeptically. It almost made sense. “So why fake your death again? Thor mourns for you.” 

“Thanos contacted me on the Asgarian ship. He already had the power stone and told me he knew I had the tesseract, he could feel it’s power. I assured him that I had been keeping it for him all this time and would meet him at neutral place to hand it over. He said no, that he would come and get it himself. I reminded him that as the rightful king of Jotunheim, I could rally the frost giants to help him in the final battles and would do so if he would spare Thor’s life. He was intrigued with the idea. He said the stone was non-negotiable. He was taking it either way, but he admired the frost giants and wanted them in his army. I told him I would do it, but only if my brother survived and believed I was dead and had died a hero. I told Thanos it was necessary that Thor believe I had not betrayed him so that I could still rejoin him as a spy later. Thanos was irritated with the whole proposal but he agreed to it. He barely kept to his part of the bargain.” 

“But Loki, its over. Thanos won and you’re still not ruling Jotunheim. You never brought any frost giants to join the battle. What are you really playing at?” Nat asked him, still confused. 

“I was too late for that. I couldn’t take my place as king without the casket of ancient winters. Bringing that back to Jotunheim is the only way they would accept me as king. I told Thanos I had to find it and then I would join him. Things like this take time to find,” Loki explained, “Thanos might have been furious that I was too late to join him if he hadn’t won.” He said seemingly amused about the situation. 

“But you know where it is, don’t you?” Nat guessed. 

Loki grinned a huge grin like he had once done on the SHIELD ship years ago. “Of course I do. It’s quite an easy matter to make it invisible. The only problem is that I’m grounded here, literally. Thanos isn’t letting me leave for another few months until I have proven my loyalty, until I have proven that I will be a balanced king. As you know he is all about balance.” 

“And what will you do once you are king?” Nat wanted to know. 

“I will bring an army to take Thanos gauntlet and set things right,” he said emphatically. 

Nat sat on the edge of the bed in shock. Loki was telling the truth. She had spent years as a spy, interrogating people, getting the truth out of them. He wasn’t speaking lies. He had just poured out the truth to her like a confession that he had been waiting years to tell. 

“All this time...why didn’t you tell anyone?” she asked. It must have been a terrible burden to bear. 

“I could not afford to seem as if I were close to Thor or any of his friends. I had to be an enemy of Thor and Odin and the Avengers or Thanos would not have allowed me to be anywhere near him. I had hoped to end this long before now and each time I have failed. Jotunheim is my last hope,” he said sadly.

“You wouldn’t need to do it alone this time. Thor and the Avengers would help you if you told them the truth,” Nat said. 

Loki shook his head. “No. It is too late for that. Thor will never understand why I kept the truth from him. Stark will certainly never forgive me. It is my destiny to do this alone. When Thanos frees me to go to Jotunheim he will allow me to take you with me. I’ll find a transport for you then and send you home.” he said getting up from the chair he was sitting in and laying down in the mat. 

Nat picked her feet up off the floor and slid back on the bed. “I’m not sure I understand either why you tried to defeat Thanos alone.” 

“Because he wouldn’t expect it. Not from me. He’d expect it from Nebula his daughter, because she hated him with a passion. He’d expect it from Thor because he is mighty enough to try. But he expects me, as the younger weaker prince of Asgard, to crave power and acceptance enough that I would follow him anywhere. I had to maintain the illusion that I was what he believed me to be, even in requesting that he help me fake my own death. Doing that helped to secure his belief that I craved Thor’s respect, even in death. Thanos thinks I am weak and lost and that I need him more than he needs me. That is my only advantage. I couldn’t afford to lose it.” 

“Do you?” Nat asked from where she sat on the bed hugging her knees. “Do you crave power and acceptance?” 

“No. Not power,” he said simply. “The hour grows late. We should sleep.” 

Nat never expected she would be able to sleep peacefully in the same room as the god of mischief but she did sleep. She awoke in the morning to find the room empty and a tray of food waiting for her on the table. Nat ate the fresh foods and once again stored the fruits and nuts in the pillowcase under the bed. Maybe Loki had been speaking the truth about getting her home in a few months but if he had, then he was in as much danger here as she was and she needed to be prepared to escape on her own if necessary. And maybe Loki was just a really good liar. She had been through too much to really be sure of anything. 

A few hours later Loki returned to his room. He brought another tray of food with him. 

“So this is my new cell?” Nat asked him as he placed the food on the table before her. “Or do I get to leave this room?” 

Loki raised an eyebrow, then sighed, taking a seat at the table across from her. “I don’t want to keep you prisoner but if you escape before I am free to leave for Jotunheim, Thanos will never let me go.” 

“He might never let you go anyway,” Nat pointed out. 

“I know,” Loki said. “Even so, I can not risk it. Not this soon.” 

“I won’t try to escape. You can probably use your magic to track me anyway. Why not just let me out to take a walk?” 

“Only if you are willing to play a very specific role, which I doubt you are.” 

“What role?” Nat asked, not liking where this was going at all. 

“I personally requested that Thanos give you to me. At first he refused. He said if I wanted you I could take my turn along with the others. I told him that wasn’t enough. He wanted to know why I cared about what happens to any of the Avengers or was I deluded enough to have feelings for one. I told him that it would amuse me to rescue you. So you see, Thanos believes I desire the admiration of an Avenger, that this is another ploy for worship and acceptance. In that scenario, there would be no chance I would let you out unless you believed I had rescued you. Can you go out among these people and pretend to be a damsel in distress?” he asked her. 

Nat felt a little sick. “I don’t think so.” 

He nodded. “I expected you would say that…” 

“How do I know that you actually don’t want to be some sort of knight in shining armor?” she asked him, irritated. 

“That would be boring. If I wanted that, there are countless women on countless worlds I might have rescued. I am a god after all. It would be simple enough to find someone on some primitive world to worship me if I desired it.” Loki said. 

“Maybe, but finding someone on a not so primitive world to worship you might be a more interesting challenge,” Nat pointed out. 

Loki grinned “Please, don’t flatter yourself. I asked Thanos for you to be given to me simply because as I said, I am not a monster. Your treatment in the cell was inhumane and I wasn’t going to allow it to continue. Nothing more and nothing less.” 

“So taking a walk is out of the question?” Nat continued. 

“For the time being, yes,” Loki told her. He finished his food quickly and got to his feet. “I have matters to attend to. When I return tonight I will bring clothes and a few more books in english to help occupy your time.” 

“I speak Russian,” Natasha pointed out. She got up and went to the bookshelf, taking down the three Russian titles. “Do you read Russian as well?” 

“I can read many languages. I assume you speak more than just two?” he asked, moving towards the door. 

“Seven fluently, two or three others not so fluently,” Nat told him. 

Loki looked impressed. “That is a great number of languages for a mortal.” 

Nat shrugged. “It’s a normal number for a spy.” 

“I will bring books from earth in multiple languages then,” he told her and he left her alone. 

Nat spent the next few hours reading the books available to her and trying not to think about what her fate might be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first chapter is always the longest, so this chapter and the following chapters will be shorter.

For two weeks Natasha remained locked in Loki’s room. In all that time he did not harm her. He kept to a routine. When she woke up each morning he was already gone, having left her a tray of food for breakfast. He returned at lunch with more food and a book or two. Sometimes they talked over lunch and sometimes they didn’t. It really depended on if he was in a sullen mood or an amused one. She thought it was best not to test his sullen moods and remained silent during those meals. He always left after lunch and did not return again until late evening. A servant (accompanied by guards) brought her a meal for dinner which Nat ate alone. When Loki did return in the late evening hours he often looked worn out. She asked him about it on her second day and he told her she’d be better off not knowing. Nat never asked again. The fact that he kept to this routine made her more hopeful for escape if not for the fact that she couldn’t overpower Loki or easily fool him. 

When he returned late one evening at the beginning of the third week, Nat noticed that not only was he utterly exhausted, he had blood on his clothes. She closed the book on her lap and sat up in the bed, swinging her legs over the edge so her feet touched the floor. Loki was in one of his sullen moods and barely noticed her. He strode across the room, removed his jacket and cloak, all but throwing them over the back of a chair. Then he trudged to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him rather forcefully. She heard the sound of water running for a long while. Nat got up and went to his discarded cloak and jacket. Sure enough there was blood on them. Eventually Loki emerged from the room wearing clean clothes. Nat was still standing there with the sleeve of his jacket in her hand. Loki stopped short in the doorway. 

“What did you do?” Nat asked him, her mind full of grave possibilities. 

“What did I do?” Loki looked a little hurt. “After all this time you still imagine that I am a monster?” 

Nat looked down at the blood on his clothes, full of doubts about everything. Yes, he had been kind to her, but he had also done terrible things. She looked back up at him. “You really expect that I’m supposed to trust you? I’m still a prisoner and no matter how humanely you treat me you still invaded earth and you still murdered Phil Coulson. He was a good man. So what is this blood from? No lies.” 

Loki sighed and looked down almost as if he were ashamed of himself. “The blood is mine,” he said. 

“Yours?” Nat was a little surprised to hear that. 

He lifted his shirt revealing a rather deep wound between his ribs. “I am as much a prisoner as you are. Thanos rules this world which he calls New Titan. I am tasked with matters of court. I am as harsh as I dare to be with judging the prisoners but sometimes he does not like how I sentence them.” 

“And what, he tortures you for it?” Nat asked. 

“Not exactly, he lashes out if I argue with him in front of the court or if I make mocking remarks. I heal quickly. The wound will be gone by tomorrow.” Loki said. 

“You have scars,” Nat noted before he could pull down his shirt. “This happens a lot?” There was no pity or compassion in her tone. She simply wanted the facts. 

“Often enough,” Loki said, lowering himself wearily into a chair. “And it will be far worse for me if I let you go.” 

“Then we should both escape,” Nat said, knowing it was the only real solution if he were telling the truth. 

“It’s not possible,” He said, resolute. 

“Why not? You’re free to wander the city aren’t you? Why not just take a shuttle and leave?” 

Loki held up his arm and rolled up his sleeve, showing her a glowing green circle beneath his skin on his wrist. “Thanos tracks my movements. If I remove this, an alarm goes off. If I try to leave the city, an alarm goes off. He has promised he will remove it himself when I have proven myself worthy. Thus far he has kept his other promises. I can only hope that he will keep his word one more time and let me go.” 

 

“And if he doesn’t?” Nat asked. “You have a plan for that?” 

He nodded sadly. “That’s why I need you. The only way I can escape at that point is if I leave my arm behind. Can you do that?” 

Nat raised an eyebrow. She had been party to plenty of violence in her lifetime as a spy but she had never cut off a man’s arm before. “I get to leave then too?” she asked. 

“Of course. I will aid your escape as much as I can without an arm,” Loki said, “But I might need your help more than you need mine.” 

Right, because if he were injured during their escape he might be rather useless. She shook her head. “So it turns out that you rescued me me out of that cell just so I could rescue you out of yours.” 

“It may never come to that,” Loki said. 

“It will,” Nat said, more sure of it than she had been of anything in a long time. “He isn’t going to let you go. We’d be better off to go now before he expects it than to wait until he tells you you're not worthy.” 

“You are rather eager for me to lose an arm, aren’t you?” he said, angry. 

“I’m not. I just want this to work. There is no better way and you know it.” 

Loki looked down at his glowing wrist. “Give me ten days,” he said sadly. “If nothing changes by then we’ll do it your way.”


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Nat woke to find Loki still asleep on the floor mat near the bed. There was fresh blood on his shirt from the wound. He looked rather warm and feverish. 

“Loki?” she said, unsure what to make of this. He didn't respond. Nat got out of bed and knelt down at his side. She nudged his shoulder a little. “Loki!” He still didn’t respond. He was very warm to touch. She wasn’t sure what his temperature should be but being a frost giant she was pretty sure he ought to be cooler than this. 

Nat pulled back his shirt to get a look at the wound. Sure enough, it looked infected. He was supposed to be able to heal. What had Thanos done to him? Nat wasn’t sure what to do with Loki in this state. She knew first aid but had very little by way of supplies in this room. Not only that, she was pretty sure that this was no ordinary infection. She glanced around the room, taking note of the fact that there was no breakfast tray yet. That had to mean that either Loki usually retrieved it himself while she slept or else someone would deliver it. If someone did come with food, this could be her chance to escape. She could overpower that servant girl Rilla easily enough, especially if Loki were unconscious and unable to try and stop her. Nat had memorized the surrounding city streets from the window view days ago. Her bag of food supplies was still ready and waiting under the bed. If she were leaving, the only thing left to do was wait, for either the food to arrive or for someone to come and check into why Loki was late for court. 

Nat reached under the bed and pulled out the pillowcase. Loki had to have known it was there. It was in plain sight from where he slept on the floor and he had never said a word about it. She got quickly to her feet and tossed her few items of clothing into the pillowcase. Loki made a sound like he was in pain. Nat stopped moving, concerned that he was awake enough to stop her escape. She looked back at him and found that he wasn’t really awake at all. He was probably dying and if he wasn’t dying, he would be punished for letting her escape. Could she really leave him to be tortured or to die? How would she ever face Thor again if she did? 

Nat dropped her pillowcase to the floor and kicked it under the bed. Loki had done absolutely nothing to harm her in all this time. As much as she hated to admit it, he had saved her from a far worse sort of prison than the one he had brought her to. He seemed to be on her side and not her enemy after all. Leaving him now might be her best chance to escape but it would be cold and cruel. Thor would not want such a fate for his brother and truthfully she didn’t want it for him either. She wasn’t convinced he deserved it. 

With a resolute sigh Nat went to the bathroom and gathered all the bandages and salves she could find. She got a bowl of water, a washcloth, and brought them all to the floor next to Loki. Then she set to work cleaning his wound as best she could. Maybe it wouldn’t help much but she had to try. When the wet cloth touched his skin he made another noise of pain. She did her best to do her work gently. Once she was done she stayed on the floor next to him and waited to see who would come to the door. Someone would eventually arrive. It was only a matter of time. 

Several hours passed before she heard the trudging angry footsteps of the guards. The door was thrown open rather forcefully and it was none other than Morg who stood in the doorway. 

“What’s he doing here and not at court?” Morg said, crossing the room and looking down at Loki. “He sick?” 

Nat got to her feet, not willing to stay anywhere near Morg without being on the defensive. 

“He has a stab wound. It’s infected,” Nat said. 

Morg grinned a toothy ugly grin. “I doubt that. This one can heal and he can do all sorts of tricks and illusions.” 

“I think this is real,” Nat said. “He’s been down for hours.” 

“That so?” Morg said, glancing over to his fellow guard with a mischievous look. “Then he won’t mind if I do this.” Morg kicked Loki in the ribs hard. More blood pooled on his shirt. 

“You have to bring a healer,” Nat said, interrupting Morg’s laughter. 

“I do not. I don’t take orders from you. I think I will take you with me though after I kick him a few more times. We’ll just tell Thanos you escaped while Loki here was injured, won’t we?” Morg reached for her arm and Nat reacted instinctively by punching him in the face. 

Morg grabbed his bleeding nose for only a moment before moving to lash out at her in return. Nat stepped aside and grabbed the chair at the nearby table, hitting Morg with it so hard that it broke. The second guard took a stance as if to help his friend. Nat swung the broken chair at him. 

“Look boys,” Nat took up the other unbroken chair to hold them at bay. “I could break all the furniture in the room over your heads and get past you and then you’d be punished by Thanos for letting me escape or you can walk out of here now and bring back a healer to save the brother of Thor of Asgard. Someday Thor might just reward you for that.” 

The two guards looked at each other dully and then nodded. “Fine, we’ll bring a healer but next time we’ll be armed.” 

Nat nodded and lowered the chair. Of course they would be armed. They were only unarmed in the cells when there was concern that a prisoner could overpower them. Now that Loki was injured they had no such concern about him. Nat watched them go and sank down to the floor, relieved that the encounter hadn't been nearly as violent as it might have been.


	4. Chapter 4

Less than an hour passed before someone returned to Loki’s room. Nat heard the footsteps of several people approaching out in the hallway. The door was thrown open and the two guards entered first, each taking a position inside the door. An older woman followed them in carrying a box of medical supplies. Then a tall figure blocked off the doorway. He ducked beneath the door and entered the room. It was Thanos himself. Nat had not expected him to arrive at all. 

The healing woman was already kneeling at Loki’s side checking his wound. Nat stood near the end of the bed out of the way and on the defensive. Thanos crossed the room and looked down at Loki with a concerned expression. 

“Laida, how is he?” Thanos asked the healing woman. 

“There is poison in the wound. If this had waited a few hours more it might have been too late,” Laida explained. 

Thanos shook his head sadly and turned to the guards. “Get him up on the bed where she can work more efficiently.” The two guards did as bidden and moved Loki to the bed. Thanos watched Laida administer her medicines a little longer then looked to Nat. “What did you do to him?” 

“I didn’t do anything,” Nat said, her mind spinning with what she could say to convince him of it. “I don’t have access to any poison in here. And why would I hurt him? He moved me from a cell to this room where I’m treated better.” 

“And yet he sleeps on the floor?” Thanos asked her. 

“Because he is respectful of my space. All the more reason for me not to stab him or poison him.” 

Thanos narrowed his eyes and gazed at her as if he didn’t believe a word she said. 

“Why don’t you just use that gauntlet and find out what happened?” Nat said suggested in her smartass way. 

Thanos looked down at the gauntlet on his hand then back at her. “This is not some toy to be used to make myself wealthy or find long lost loves or even to heal my dearest friends. I wear it only because it is too dangerous to allow anyone else to take it. I will not use it. Not even for him.” 

“Loki is your dear friend?” Nat asked, one eyebrow raised. 

“Do you doubt it?” Thanos replied. 

“If he is your dear friend then I’m not sure why he told me you lash out at him at court or that you stabbed him.” 

“What I do, I do for his own good, just as I have done for my own daughters,” Thanos said. “He is like my own son. His father Laufey abandoned him. Odin lied to him. I will do neither of those things. I will give Loki loyalty and truth, even if it hurts him. It will make him better.” 

Nat could hardly believe this. “Did poison make him better?” 

Thanos looked irritated but he didn’t reply. He turned to Laida. “Can you tell what sort of poison it was?” 

The older woman nodded her head. “I have seen this before. It is called Devil’s Root. It does not grow on this world.” 

Thanos grunted, frustrated. “The trade routes going offworld are carefully monitored. Tell me what world it came from and I can find out who brought it here.” 

“It grows on many worlds, just not this one,” Laida said. “It be more prudent to make a list of his enemies.” 

“She makes a good point,” Nat agreed. 

“That will be done as well,” Thanos said. “Tell me, what do you need to make him well again?” 

“For the next three or four days, this salve must be applied every hour. The wound will fester and need frequent washing. If this is done as I instruct, he will most likely be much better in a week’s time.” Laida said. 

“You will do it,” Thanos said to Nat. It wasn’t a question. “You will see to it that he lives and while you tend him I will seek out whoever it was that has done this to him.” Thanos didn’t wait for her reply. He took one last look at Loki and then left the room. 

Nat waited until the door had shut before speaking to Laida. “What sort of poison is Devil’s Root? And how would it have gotten into the stab wound that Thanos gave Loki without him knowing about it?” 

“He had to have eaten it,” Laida explained. “If someone ingests Devil’s Root and then gets injured, the wound will fester and consume them. That’s how it works. Criminals use it to murder someone by what seems to be an accidental infection. Had Loki not been stabbed, he would have suffered nothing but a stomach ache.” 

“Do you ever attend court? Does he have enemies on New Titan?” 

“I am not privileged enough to attend court. However, Thanos has given Loki power to judge many cases. As such, he could have plenty of enemies.” 

“Great,” Nat muttered and realized to her own shock that she really did care about finding out who had poisoned Loki. She glanced down to where he lay feverish and unconscious on the bed and had to admit to herself that she was worried about him. 

“Thanos will not rest until he has avenged his favorite son. You needn’t worry about that,” Laida said reassuringly. “Now...do you know how to change bandages?” 

Nat paid close attention while Laida showed her how to care for Loki over the next few days. The last thing she needed was to somehow get it wrong and have Loki not recover. Not only would that mean she’d lost her only aly, it would mean Thanos might blame her for it.


End file.
